So what’s all this blogging business about then? There seems to be a lot about it in the UK press these days and a lot of it about generally. My thoughts on the subject:

1. Blogs seem to me to be the 21st century equivalent of a message in a bottle – chuck your message out across the e-waves and wait to see if anyone finds it, reads it, and then takes the time to reply. Some of them anyway…
2. They also seems a good way just to get things off one’s chest. I end up ranting quite a lot in emails to, and down the pub at, the people I like to think of as my friends (whether they like me to think of them like that is another matter). A blog seems like a way of doing this to the whole world. The global speaker’s corner if you like (the phrase “go tell it to the pigeons” always springs to mind when I think of speaker’s corner though – maybe not a good metaphor then).
3. Blogs are a way to meet people, to expand the network? I guess so, but there’s nothing like eye contact to foster a relationship.
4. They provide a forum to develop new collaborations, share and develop ideas…? Maybe, but centrally-coordinated discussion groups (e.g. Comment is Free) are probably better than the distributed, open networks of blogs for that sort of thing aren’t they? [Is there any point in rhetorical questions in a blog? The whole thing is rhetorical isn’t it?].

hmmm… Well look at that! I’ve ended up ranting already. Maybe a blog is a good idea for me after all. As I’ve now set up this website I may as well see if I can slap a bit more content into it by adding my meandering thoughts on a regular basis. Subject? My Rants, whatever they might be about; something to track my journey – you join me over 25 years of the way through and I still don’t really know what my destination is (who does?), but that’s no probs ‘cos I think I’m going in roughly the right direction. As we’ve started late, it won’t matter that my first proper blog was written last Sunday…

j|m